'Prospero and Miranda', c 1865.

Description

Photograph 'from life' by Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879) of a scene from Shakespeare's 'The Tempest'. The poet and dramatist Henry Taylor (1800-1886) plays Prospero, and Mary Ryan is his daughter Miranda. Cameron's photographic portraits are considered among the finest in the early history of photography. She set up a private studio at her Isle of Wight home at the age of 48, after her daughter gave her a camera, and she became expert at using the collodion wet-plate process. She used friends, servants and neighbours as subjects, including the scientists Charles Darwin and John Herschel, and the poet Alfred Lord Tennyson. Much of her work reflects the Pre-Raphaelite painting style which was popular at the time.